When the VIA board of trustees finally does vote on a downtown streetcar route, chairman Henry Muñoz III won't be in the room.

Addressing concerns that he might profit from two of the potential routes, Muñoz said he will recuse himself from decision-making portion of the process.

His announcement comes two weeks after the San Antonio Express-News reported that Muñoz partly owns a St. Paul Square building just a stone's throw from two of the four route alternatives.

“I have volunteered for almost four years to help bring multimodal transit to the City of San Antonio,” Muñoz wrote in a statement. “This transformational initiative is more than one individual vote. For this reason, I have recused myself from discussion or decision making related to the staff recommendation of a locally preferred alternative for streetcar.”

Before the final vote in late September, the streetcar team — composed of VIA staff and consultants HNTB — will choose a recommended streetcar route, called the locally preferred alternative. Then, Muñoz said, he will step aside. The rest of the VIA board ultimately makes the route decision.

After questions of potential conflicts arose, VIA hired Ross Fischer, former chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission, to advise its trustees on the best ethical practices as the selection process nears its end.

Fischer wrote that each of the 10 trustees should “exercise diligence and care in determining whether he or she has an interest that would likely be impacted by the recommended route.” If the answer is yes, trustees then should disclose the information to the rest of the board prior to the final vote, he added.

Fischer declined to comment further Wednesday.

Now, VIA trustees aren't required to complete financial disclosure forms; it's up to individual trustees to disclose such information on their own.

But the transit system, which has about $210 million to spend on streetcar, is looking to fix that.

“Staff is beginning the process of reviewing our disclosure practices today,” VIA spokeswoman Priscilla Ingle said. “We're beginning to reach out to other transit systems to see what processes they have in place to see how we might be able to revise ours.”

After VIA trustees twice voted to fund streetcars, most recently in November 2011, Muñoz's company, Modern on Main II, bought the building in question in February 2012.

The nondescript, two-story brick commercial building at 102 Heiman St. on the near East Side is being used for storage, Muñoz has said. The building is appraised at $342,000 by the Bexar County Appraisal District.

In March, the board was shown six streetcar alternatives. At the July board meeting, it was presented with two last-minute route options — including Market and Commerce streets, which would be closer to Muñoz's building.